


Limbo

by meridian_rose (meridianrose)



Category: Midnight Texas (TV)
Genre: Creek appears briefly but they're not together, Gen, Limbo, References to A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens, everyone loves Manfred, mentions the other characters, past Manfred/Creek, some whump kindof?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 20:52:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16940520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meridianrose/pseuds/meridian_rose
Summary: Manfred tracks Creek down in Austin but what he finds has him leave so abruptly he walks into traffic. He finds himself in Limbo, between life and death, and forced to look at his past, what could have been, what might be - and what is truly important to him.





	Limbo

**Author's Note:**

> I started this after S2e1 and finally finished the editing so I could get it posted.

After a restless night, Manfred decided to go and track Creek down. He'd waited long enough. Maybe she'd forgot to call, maybe she'd lost his number, maybe there was some other ridiculous excuse to explain why she hadn't visited or sent so much as a text.

He saw Bobo out in the street and said, "I'm going to Austin. I'll be back soon."

"Oh…okay," Bobo said in a too-carefully neutral way. He nodded to the RV, still on the drive. "You're not driving?"

Manfred shook his head. Last time he'd taken it out to Davy there'd been some ominous rattles and he feared the RV needed a full service which was probably going to cost him plenty in repairs. He didn't want to risk the thing breaking down again, stranding him in the middle of nowhere.

"I'm taking the bus. Be nice to enjoy the scenery."

"You want a ride to the bus station?"

Manfred hesitated a second but declined. "I can get the local service to Davy. But thanks for the offer."

"Well, call me if you change your mind or miss the next bus," Bobo said and Manfred thanked him again and dashed off, well aware that if he missed the bus into Davy he'd definitely miss his connection to Austin.

*

Austin was...Austin. Manfred had seen a lot of towns and cities in his travels. Each had their own quirks, yet each seemed similar in some way to another place he'd been. It took a lot to make an impression on him.

He found the student accommodation easily enough, for it was clearly marked on the website. Creek hadn't contacted Manfred but she had called Olivia; Manfred had overheard her telling Lem that Creek had got a scholarship to the writing program which included a room on the edge of the campus in a new purpose built block.

"Hi," Manfred said, trying to charm a female student with blue hair who was just leaving the apartment block. He was hoping his piercings might help him blend in and he'd be mistaken for an older student. "I'm supposed to meet with Creek Lovell but I forgot her room number."

The girl regarded him for a moment. "You that guy in her play?"

Sure. Manfred nodded, playing along.

"She said you weren't great with remembering things" the girl laughed and Manfred laughed along with her. "You'll have to do better with your lines."

"I'll do my best."

"3C," the girl said. "Good luck."

"Thanks." Manfred headed inside and found his way to 3C. He wasn't sure what he was going to say. He was secretly hoping Creek would open the door and be surprised and glad to see him. She'd throw her arms around him and it would fix everything.

He paused outside the door, shuffling from foot to foot. Here went nothing. He knocked.

"Just a minute!"

A few seconds later Creek opened the door. Manfred stared at her.

She was barely dressed, a robe hastily thrown on. Her mouth fell open and she tugged the flimsy material more securely over her naked body, folding her arms across her chest. "Manfred. What the hell are you doing here?"

"Is it the pizza, honey?" The feminine voice came from behind Creek.

"No!" Creek turned to lean over her shoulder and Manfred got a better glimpse inside, of the crumpled bed and the young blonde woman, wearing nothing but skimpy underwear, who was lounging there.

"Send them away then," the blonde said.

Creek stepped halfway into the hall, pulling the door against her. "Manfred -"

"No. I get it. I'm sorry. I - " Manfred turned and bolted. Along the corridor, down the stairs, out into the chilly air, along the path.

She was with someone else.

She was with another woman.

She was...

Manfred was so wrapped up in his thoughts he ran headlong into traffic. A delivery vehicle slammed straight into him, tossing him up onto the hood before he fell heavily onto the street.

There was chaos, screams, commotion. Manfred couldn't catch his breath, couldn't move. He couldn't understand what had happened or why he was so cold.

And then there was a flash of light.

*

"Hi." The woman gave him a bright smile.

Manfred looked around though there was nothing to see. Grey in every direction, like standing in a thick fog. He turned his attention to the woman. "Where are we?"

"Ohhh, 'we'. That is so sweet. We're nowhere, Manfred. Between the worlds. Limbo, you could call it."

"What? How? Who are you?" Manfred knew he shouldn't be asking so many questions. It showed a lack of control. The woman, average height, maybe mid-twenties, with tanned skin and light brown hair that cascaded down to her shoulders didn't seem to notice.

"Call me Ima. You don't remember?"

"Remember what?" He'd gone to see Creek, hadn't he? And then...

"Am I dead?"

"Not yet. Limbo, remember."

Manfred stared at the woman once more. She was wearing a white t-shirt and white leggings with white sandals. Almost a match for, while being the opposite of, his all-black ensemble.

"Are you an angel or something?"

Ima shrugged. "Or something."

Manfred let out a deep sigh. "So, what now?" Would he have to plead his case to be allowed in heaven, lest he end up in hell?

"That depends on you." Ima gestured and behind her appeared, as if on a cinema screen, a view outside the campus. Manfred was sprawled in the road, eyes glazed over, blood pouring from one corner of his mouth. "You get to choose if you go back."

Or maybe still end up in hell. Manfred didn't fully trust Ima. "So I just decide, like that?"

"No. I get to show you some things first." Ima waved one hand. The scene changed. Creek and Manfred sat in his RV, drinking beer. There was no sound but the image was vivid. "You thought you loved her."

"I did. I do."

"What were you talking about?"

Manfred stared at himself, at Creek. She was wearing a low-cut red blouse and he remembered how he'd longed to take it off and bury his head in her cleavage. He'd done just that soon enough, though they'd gone into the house because the bed in the RV was narrow and he'd scarped his knee and banged his elbow more than once when they'd tried to have sex there.

He'd made the bed ready for the occasion. He'd even put a vase of flowers on the beside. Afterwards, Creek had showered and dashed home.

"Her father," Manfred said at last. "How she had to be home before curfew."

"That's all you talked about?"

"I guess?"

Ima waved her hand. Manfred was sitting at the counter in Home Cookin', talking with Bobo. "Do you remember this?"

There was a bruise on Bobo's cheek and Manfred nodded, instantly recalling how they'd been moving a heavy table in the pawn shop and Bobo had managed to catch himself on a shelf just as they were done.

"He thanked me for helping him," Manfred said. "And talked a bit about how the table reminded him of home. The family he'd had to leave behind. And how my mother left me behind, and that I never knew my father."

Ima nodded. Another wave of her hand. Now Fiji was bathing a cut on Manfred's knuckles, though she kept looking over at the corner of the room.

A smile quirked Manfred's lips as he watched. "I'd been into Davy and brought back a book for Fiji. I got a papercut somehow and it bled quite a lot. We joked about my blood feeding the book and how it was good it wasn't an occult text. Fiji insisted on bathing the cut but Mr Snuggly kept complaining it was time for his food. She's scolding him every time she looks over there."

Ima lifted her hand.

"Wait. Why are you showing me these things from my past? Isn't this about my future?"

Ima nodded. "But they're interconnected. This is how you got here."

Was she pulling some sort of _A Christmas Carol_ on him? Manfred had no choice regardless so he stayed silent. Ima regarded him a moment before she continued. "Let me show you what would have happened if you'd gone to Austin with Creek."

This time the scene did have sound. Manfred experienced it much like a dream, quick cuts between moments, a sense of knowing more than he saw happen, of living rather than merely watching it.

Living in the RV. It was cramped and didn't give Creek much room to study. She certainly couldn't bring friends over.

They got an apartment but there was nowhere to park the RV. Creek suggested he sell it and they had a fierce argument about how much this vehicle meant to him. He drove it back to Midnight because Bobo said he didn't mind it being parked outside the house - he'd not secured another tenant yet anyway. Fiji pressed a bag of cookies into Manfred's hand before Bobo took him to the bus station.

Creek was out a lot. Classes. Study groups. Nightclubs. Sometimes Manfred went along but despite his aesthetic he wasn't the same age as Creek's new friends and he knew some of them were laughing at him behind his back. At first Creek defended him but the distance between them began to widen.

He made dinner most nights, trying to make an effort, but even when Creek did show up to eat with him they didn't talk much. He'd ask about her day. She'd give a short reply about something she was studying. Manfred increasingly got the sense she didn't think he could understand anything she was learning since he'd not been to college.

He met with clients, did online readings, plied his trade as usual. Sometimes he'd come home shaken from a violent possession and sit in the shower for an hour or more, letting the water run over him. There was no-one to talk to, no-one who could understand. His grandmother had gone, Creek got huffy and changed the subject if he tried to talk about it.

"We left all that weirdness behind," Creek told him one day.

"I didn't. I can't. It's in my blood. This is who I am!" Manfred grabbed his keys. "I'm going out."

He walked the streets alone. He wanted to go and get coffee with the cheerful Bobo, or talk with Fiji who understood being supernatural and would make him tea. Olivia's snark would be a welcome distraction. Lem wouldn't be up yet, but maybe the Rev would be around. Madonna would have pie, though it was Fiji's cookies he was craving.

Manfred had never felt this alone. He'd had Xylda, then her ghost, and when she'd passed over, he'd had Creek and his friends – the whole Midnight family.

Now he had Creek.

He went back to the apartment after dark. Creek had left a note on the table. "Gone out with the girls. Don't wait up."

He crumpled up the note. He'd been blind to how different he and Creek were. That the age difference was significant in a way the far larger one wasn't for Olivia and Lem. Manfred was older, well travelled, had got by on his wits and the education his grandmother had provided. Creek was young and wanted the experience of college, to learn and grow and meet new people.

They'd had little in common besides being single Midnighters. He'd latched onto the only young single girl in town and thought it was love. She'd latched onto the only available man in town because her father forbade it and she wanted some fun, and maybe she'd tried to imagine that was love.

Manfred stood on the balcony and gazed down at the traffic below, heartbroken and wondering what there was left for him, what he could do to fix this mess. The wind ruffled his hair and then abruptly stopped…

In Limbo, Manfred shook his head, wagged an accusing finger at the scene in front of him, which froze. "You don't know that would have happened!"

Ima raised an eyebrow. "Don't I?"

Maybe she did. Manfred still protested. "I could go back to Midnight, get the RV." It would be a start.

"Face the people you left behind? Crawl back, a failure?"

The words Ima was saying were echoes of the thoughts that Manfred had felt slithering through his mind as he watched his alternate self become disillusioned.

"They'd take me back," Manfred said but he knew he wasn't sure he believed it.

"Perhaps. But look where we are, Manfred. Creek left you in this reality too. And you couldn't stand that. You followed her here, against her wishes." Ima waved her hand and the scene changed back to the grisly present. "She chose someone else and you were so distraught you walked into traffic."

"No! It was an accident! I didn't mean to!"

"Are you certain? Because I need you to be certain, if you go back. I need you to tell me you want to go on living your life."

The "of course" that first sprang to mind never made it to his lips. Manfred swallowed and asked a different question. "What happens, if I don't go back?"

"You won't go to hell, Manfred, that I promise you. If you don't want to go back, you'll be reunited with Xylda. All the pain will be over, forever."

It was tempting, he had to admit.

"But you'll be missed," Ima said. "Creek will move on." 

As she already had, he thought. As he should have.

"For those in Midnight," Ima said, gesturing. "It will be more a little more difficult."

Manfred watched as Fiji wept at his funeral, Bobo's arm around her as he tried to be strong.

Bobo and the Rev, reminiscing about Manfred. Bobo saying he'd keep the RV and that Fiji would keep all of the books and occult items safe.

Olivia, Lem at her side, investigating to ensure this had been an accident caused by Manfred's recklessness and not the car driver's. Olivia holding herself together until she was satisfied, before throwing a bottle against the wall of the bar and cursing Manfred until her anger gave way to unwanted tears.

Joe and Chuy, walking Rasta, talking about heaven and how they hoped Manfred was at peace.

Bobo, at Manfred's grave. "I wish I could talk to you but you were the only one who could talk to the dead."

A woman - Patience? face down, drowned in the hotel's pool.

Fiji, crouched on the floor of the church, chanting desperately while Olivia and Lem brandished torches at something unseen. Joe's voice, "We need a psychic for this!"

*

Manfred stared at the featureless grey beneath his feet. "That's not Olivia," he said.

"Isn't it? You think she doesn't care because of how she teases you?" With a flick of her wrist Ima brought forth the moment Manfred had literally dropped dead due to Fiji's spell. She and Manfred watched as Olivia, without hesitation, moved to help, desperately giving him CPR, distraught when Joe told her to stop.

"You doubt any else's affection?" Ima asked.

Manfred shook his head.

"So," Ima said, and once more Manfred was staring at himself, dead or dying. "Your friends love you. They've become your family. They need you. Those are things that will almost certainly come to pass, if you don't choose to go back, but there's a chance it will be otherwise. They'll probably find a way to defeat their grief and whatever new darkness they face."

"But you can't guarantee that."

Ima shrugged.

"But if I go back," Manfred said, "what kind of life am I going back to?" He nodded to the bloodied, broken figure in front of him.

"It was a bad accident," Ima agreed. "But there are things in your favour."

This time the scenes showed Manfred helping spirits find justice, and peace. Risking his life to help his fellow Midnighters. Defeating Colcannar.

"I have to speak with the powers of light," Ima said. "Wait here."

She vanished. Manfred rolled his eyes. Where was he going to go?

Ima reappeared. "How long was I gone?"

"About five seconds."

She beamed. "Oh, I'm getting better at the time thing! I've spoken with the Light. Your grandmother put in a good word for you. Defeating Colcannar was a big deal. Given your services and potential, you've earned a true second chance. If you choose to go back, it'll be just before you get hit by the car. Sound good?"

"Yes." Manfred considered his options once more. Xylda had seemed happy, when she visited him - assuming it truly had been her and not just a hallucination. But his time on earth wasn't done yet. Creek hadn't been his one true love, if such a thing existed, and he had to let go of her and the ideal he'd built up in his head, now he'd seen the truth. "All right."

"A little more enthusiasm please," Ima said.

"I want to go back," Manfred said. "Please."

"Very well."

*

Manfred ran, not looking where he was going. A woman collided with him, her shoulder ramming into his chest, and he stumbled, took a step back from the kerb.

"I'm so sorry." The woman placed a hand on his shoulder. She had long brown hair and kind eyes and looked familiar. "Are you all right?"

Manfred nodded, one hand to his chest. He took a few deep breaths. "Yeah. Just winded."

"I'm so clumsy."

"No." Manfred squinted at her fashionable clothing, wondering why it seemed wrong to him. Shouldn't she be in white? And why did he think that? "It was my fault."

"Okay. No harm done. You take care," the woman said. She gave him a warm smile and walked away.

Manfred leaned over, hands on his knees, and took another deep breath. Then he went to the crossing and, once safely headed away from the campus, took out his phone.

"Hey," Bobo said, answering almost immediately. "How you doing?"

Manfred spotted a bench and sat down. "Not great," he said honestly. "I know it's a lot to ask, but do you think you could come and fetch me?"

"Of course I can. Sit tight. I'll be there as soon as I can. Where exactly are you?"

Manfred looked around and spotted a diner. "I'll text you the address," he said, "and go get a coffee while I wait."

"Sounds good." From the sound of it, Bobo was moving around the store, getting ready to leave. "See you soon."

"Thank you."

*

Bobo called to say he was ten minutes away. Manfred downed the last of his second cup of coffee and pulled his coat on. He'd spent the time alternately trying to place the woman he'd bumped into but to no avail, and thinking about what might have been had he come to Austin with Creek. If she'd still have found someone else. If he'd have been alone in an apartment waiting for her to come home, when he might have been able to grab a beer with Bobo before returning to the house he'd come to love in Midnight.

Manfred paced the sidewalk until Bobo showed up. He got in, and they began the drive home.

"So, I'm guessing things didn't go well," Bobo said, once they'd left Austin.

Manfred shook his head. "She was in bed with someone else," he said, and he didn't sound as bitter as he'd expected.

"Man, I'm sorry."

"It was another woman," Manfred added.

"Oh." Bobo considered this for a moment as they overtook a delivery truck. "She might just be experimenting. Or she could be bisexual."

"I don't think it matters. I don't think she'd cheat on me," Manfred said. "I think it's really over and I just didn't want to accept that."

"That's rough," Bobo said.

Manfred gazed at the road. He was used to driving, had increasingly taken over the driving during the last ten years and once Xylda had got sick he'd been the sole driver of the RV that was their home. There was a certain calming familiarity about travel, and a certain novelty to being a passenger again.

"It's okay," Manfred said at last. "It still hurts, but I'm starting to see it's for the best. She has her own life now, the one her father took from her. I can't be part of it. It was just a shock."

"Of course it was." Bobo glanced at him. "I'm glad you called me."

"I'm glad you came."

"Of course I came! Olivia wanted to come too," Bobo said. "We'd have been here in under ninety minutes had I let her drive but I told her no, someone has to watch the store. And that I wanted us home in one piece."

Manfred gave a chuckle. He was warmed by Olivia's concern as much as he agreed with Bobo's opinion of her driving.

"Thank you. I mean it," Manfred said. It had been a hell of day and something at the back of his mind kept insisting it could have been worse. For now he pushed the thoughts aside.

"Hey, what are friends for?" Bobo asked.

Manfred leaned his head back, grateful for the sun on his face and the road sign that meant they were halfway home. Midnight was home, and that was where he belonged, with his new friends. His family.


End file.
